RE: Vonage complains about VoIP-blocking
-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of John Levine Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2005 9:02 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Vonage complains about VoIP-blocking
http://advancedippipeline.com/60400413
The FCC is investigating -- it's not even clear if it's illegal to do that.
For what it's worth, my ISP is owned by my rural ILEC, and I just cancelled my Vonage service because it had become unusable.
However, the problem was not TFTP, it was rotten inbound voice quality, combined with a complete inability to contact anyone at Vonage by e-mail or phone to do anything about it. My link is a T1, and it has plenty of spare inbound capacity. Traceroutes suggest that Vonage is suffering from packet loss problems at gateways between their NSP and mine, or perhaps the packet loss within my NSP (Sprint) was too much for it.
I switched to Lingo which works fine. Its box uses NTP to set the time, then http to configure.
Odd regarding the Vonage connection. Their sitting on UU from where I can see and I have excellent transit to them from Comcast. I've tested Vonage, only because I had it, with the Semena NE2000 Network Test Device and introduced multiple error, path, and latency issues and it stood up very well. At one point, I jacked up the latency to 4000ms and I was still able to place, communicate, and drop calls effectively. I was very surprised at how it handled that large introduced latency. I don't know about Vonage support. Never tried it. -M<
Odd regarding the Vonage connection. Their sitting on UU from where I can see and I have excellent transit to them from Comcast.
I'm on Sprint, and the service was fine for a year and a half. In recent months it deteriorated to the point where more often than not I couldn't understand the other party at all, even though they always said they could hear me fine. Since my connection is symmetrical (t1, not dsl or cable) and my stats always say I have spare inbound capacity, I'm sure it's not at my end.
I've tested Vonage, only because I had it, with the Semena NE2000 Network Test Device and introduced multiple error, path, and latency issues and it stood up very well. At one point, I jacked up the latency to 4000ms and I was still able to place, communicate, and drop calls effectively. I was very surprised at how it handled that large introduced latency.
It wasn't latency, it was jitter and mostly dropouts. I think they have vast amounts of buffering so latency is tolerable if you can stand the talking to the moon effect.
I don't know about Vonage support. Never tried it.
That's the problem. It no longer exists. E-mail is auto-acked and ignored, phone calls go through the usual voice jail tree until you get to the point when it would queue me for a person, where I always got a busy signal. Calling the number to cancel was no problem getting through, but by then it was too late, I'd already ported the number to Lingo who is slightly cheaper and has a much larger local calling area, roughly Honolulu to Helsinki. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Mayor "I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly.
At 01:54 AM 2/16/2005, you wrote:
Odd regarding the Vonage connection. Their sitting on UU from where I can see and I have excellent transit to them from Comcast.
I'm on Sprint, and the service was fine for a year and a half. In recent months it deteriorated to the point where more often than not I couldn't understand the other party at all, even though they always said they could hear me fine. Since my connection is symmetrical (t1, not dsl or cable) and my stats always say I have spare inbound capacity, I'm sure it's not at my end.
Hmmm, despite a fat cable modem connection (6Mbps down, 768K up) I got substantially improved results with Vonage when I instituted prioritization of traffic in the firewall box I use at home, allowing the Vonage to have higher priority for a small portion of the total bandwidth. What caused that issue was file transfers and other bursty traffic overwhelming queues, resulting in vonage traffic being stomped.
I've tested Vonage, only because I had it, with the Semena NE2000 Network Test Device and introduced multiple error, path, and latency issues and it stood up very well. At one point, I jacked up the latency to 4000ms and I was still able to place, communicate, and drop calls effectively. I was very surprised at how it handled that large introduced latency.
It wasn't latency, it was jitter and mostly dropouts. I think they have vast amounts of buffering so latency is tolerable if you can stand the talking to the moon effect.
I don't know about Vonage support. Never tried it.
That's the problem. It no longer exists. E-mail is auto-acked and ignored, phone calls go through the usual voice jail tree until you get to the point when it would queue me for a person, where I always got a busy signal.
When I last called support, it sucked. Voice mail system now takes 20 to 30 seconds to ask you for your password. Clearly they have outstripped their capacity on all but perhaps the actual voice gateway systems.
Calling the number to cancel was no problem getting through, but by then it was too late, I'd already ported the number to Lingo who is slightly cheaper and has a much larger local calling area, roughly Honolulu to Helsinki.
What caused that issue was file transfers and other bursty traffic overwhelming queues, resulting in vonage traffic being stomped.
My router is a BSD/OS box and I see no evidence that it's losing packets. Keep in mind that the trouble was on inbound traffic, and my internal network, a 100Mb switched ethernet, is a lot faster than my T1, so it's hard to see how there'd be any queueing under any circumstances. I did traceroutes, looks like it was in either Sprint-land or the NSP to NSP gateway.
Having sudden difficulties with VoIP service here in Bangkok (two providers) I called Vonage tech support who have recommended a comprehensive channel test (using a utility they recommend) from which the fault location should be analyzeable. I am running the 6-hour test now. Anyone interested contact me offlist Kind regards, Jeffrey Race, today in Bangkok Thailand ---------------------------------------- USA tieline (rings at Bangkok residence) TIME ZONE GMT +7 -------------+1 617 395-4111------------ Tel +66 2 291-2235 Fax +66 2 688-4540 Tel +66 6 709-7645 (mobile -- 24 hours) Tel +66 6 563-5682 (mobile -- odd times) ADVENTURES IN THAI JUSTICE Cautionary real-life case studies for potential investors or visitors <http://pws.prserv.net/studies/> Right body metrics for health and vitality: do you know yours? <http://www.camblab.com/nugget/metric2.pdf> -- Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.7 - Release Date: 2/10/2005
(two providers) I called Vonage tech support who have recommended a comprehensive channel test
Wow! You got someone on the phone!
(using a utility they recommend)
I'd be interested, even though my Vonage ATA is about to go back. Tnx. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor "I shook hands with Senators Dole and Inouye," said Tom, disarmingly.
participants (5)
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Daniel Senie -
Hannigan, Martin -
Jeffrey Race -
John Levine -
John R Levine